I have a co-worker who has had the opportunity to travel to our Singapore office. One of the foods he mentioned as being a particularly tasty treat while in the country was some dessert dish called a “mooncake“. Just last week, we had one of our Singapore office IT staff visit the US for some cross-training. She brought a couple of these mooncakes with her as a treat for her American counterparts; a treat that my co-worker obviously found particularly pleasant given his previous love of the dessert.

All of that puts this commentary from Cory Doctorow in profound perspective:

A couple nights back, I mentioned mooncakes at a dinner in Beijing and the table erupted in hilarity and derision — my hosts advised me that mooncakes are the Chinese equivalent of Christmas cakes — no one likes them, everyone gives them (I like Christmas cake!). They are haloed with weird possible urban legends, like the scandal of a mooncake manufacturer that was recycling last year’s filling because no one can taste the difference between year-old and fresh mooncake stuffin’.

Mooncake, indeed.